Pineland Farms

We are really lucky to live near some great farms and Pineland Farms is one of them!  We recently went there with our good friends Steve and Becky and their daughter Brynn and had a great morning.  Claire is really into farm animals and animals in general.  She has this wooden farm she got for Christmas with some animals and the stuff she does with those animals is hysterical, it's so fun to watch/listen.  She builds them houses, beds and boats out of her Duplos.  I am loving watching her enter into the stage of imaginative play.   Obviously supplementing that interest with a trip to see real live animals was perfect.   Next stop this spring is to see the baby lambs at Wolfe's Neck perhaps. Claire continues to remind us that her favorite place ever should be opening up for the spring season soon......  And maybe chickens of our own for our backyard next year??  I hope so!

Water Play

So I just realized I did a post about sand play, and now here is a post with some cute pictures of Claire doing water play.  I guess sand and water really are kid's two favorite mediums of play, right?  Especially when combined.... although I usually try to avoid that, I really can only take so much mess!
Here is a picture of Claire at about 14 months or so when she got started with water play.

I thought she was so adorable the way she wanted to sit in the sink!  Safety issues aside, I would get some kitchen cleaning done while she did this, I loved it.  Maybe for Amelia this summer??

Now she is nearing the age of three, I will get out my good old basins from work and set up a 'dish washing station' for her.  Before she actually got the concept of dish washing it was just a water station, but now I actually give her some cups/bowls/spoons/bottles that very much need her attention, and ask her if she can help me by washing them.  It's kind of nice, we'll be washing dishes side by side and she will really try to 'wash' the first cup or two, before she starts doing her own thing with the water and soap, pouring, stirring, pouring, always more pouring.

Now I think with every stage of development where something becomes easier, some other difficult attribute emerges to balance it out so young kids are never actually 'easy'.  As Claire gets closer to three, I can tell her little will continues to grow stronger and she is always testing the limits. So, it's easier that I can (sort of) let her play unsupervised next to me while I get dishes done and she gets the concept of helping.  But, after she became bored of the pouring and washing, she started pouring the water in between the basins and it would go all over the floor.  Then, when I calmly (and I did remain calm, yay!) reminded her each time that water stays in the basins, not on the floor, she refused to accept this limit and really wanted to watch it spill it all over the floor, and an almost power struggle ensued.  Sigh.  So, then it was time to clean it up and put it away.  A friend of mine recently suggested to me that with small children, it's best to limit time at an activity because their attention spans are so small and they inevitably get bored and start messing it up somehow.  (Or at least that's what I think she meant).   We'll soldier on with the variations of water play for now!!

Indoor Sandbox

I finally tackled this project for Claire, something I had wanted to do for a long time. (I think since last winter!)  I got the idea from this wonderful Waldorf based book, Heaven on Earth.   I have gotten a lot of great ideas from this book! The basic instructions seem so obvious too, it made me wonder why I didn't think of it myself, or do it sooner.  You basically just get a large plastic bin with a cover, get a couple bags of play sand (which is actually super cheap) and dump it in, throw in some measuring cups and spoons and voila!  Indoor sandbox. 

 The main point is that you don't let the kids sit in the sandbox, but sit around it, which Claire got pretty quick.  The other rule 'the sand stays in the sandbox' has been followed with varying success.   I think I envisioned (like I do with all activities I create for her) that she would become absorbed in hours of independent play with the sand, leaving me to clean the kitchen, hold the baby, whatever else. 

Mostly though, she wanted me to play with her, and it was when I did leave her alone with it (for more than ten minutes anyway) was when sand started getting dumped on the floor and brought to other rooms.  In the big picture, sand sweeps up pretty quickly and it was pretty cute to see her build roads for cars and bury her farm animals. (That sounds strange said out loud, but she kept 'hiding' them under the sand.) 
I am looking forward to the summer and the actual outside sandbox.  I am definitely tiring of finding more and more indoor activities to occupy us during these winter months!  Maybe next winter with Amelia being older it'll be easier to get outside more.